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She turned on her heel.
Nothing to lose at this point. “Wendy, did you hear the dog — Suzie Q — bark last night or this morning?”
“No.” She kept going.
I spoke louder. “Did you hear anything else? Or see anything?”
No answer from her, but Brenda shook her head in obliging answer to my questions. “Not anything more than I told you.”
If only I hadn’t heard that statement frequently from people who were far from telling all.
CHAPTER FIVE
Diana’s foot didn’t land as hard on the accelerator on the return trip, but that was only because we were going downhill and gravity satisfied her speed demon.
“Why don’t you call Mike and Jennifer. Give them the rundown of what we just heard,” she suggested. “Make use of this time.”
She was trying to distract me. I bit back the retort that we’d have more time to make use of, if she slowed down, because we’d live longer.
I wasn’t entirely sure the NewsMobile’s brakes were up to the job of slowing us downhill. Down mountain in this case. Might as well impart updates to our colleagues to make sure the knowledge survived... even if we didn’t.
They each answered quickly and said, yes, they had free time at the moment for consulting via video call.
As we talked, I tried to keep the screen on Diana’s profile and occasionally on mine. But with the jolts and swerves of our descent, they likely got their share of blurred Wyoming landscape, too.
Hope it didn’t make them homesick. Or motion sick.
“The dog didn’t bark in the night — so most likely the killer was someone the dog knew,” Mike said. “According to Sherlock Holmes, anyway.”
“We don’t know that the dog didn’t bark,” I clarified. “We only know Brenda Mankin and Wendy Barlow said they didn’t hear it.”
“Brenda did say she almost certainly would have heard Suzie Q if she barked,” Diana said.
I huh’d acknowledgment that she’d said that, while also conveying that I withheld reliance on her statement.
“The dog could have barked and she didn’t hear it. Or the dog might not have barked, because Keefe opened the door for the killer, letting him or her in, while letting the dog out. No reason for the dog to bark then, with Keefe, essentially, vetting the arrival.”
“What it comes down to,” Diana said, “is we need to supplement Brenda’s and Wendy’s information on the dog’s barking habits before drawing conclusions.”
After a beat of agreement, Jennifer spoke up. “Sounds like you’re not trusting Brenda, but she said she thought he’d fallen and hit his head and the person who shot him would know that wasn’t the case.”
I remembered my thought that Brenda needed to express the thoughts in her head more than have them understood, which would fit with her truly being confused. Unless... unless she was playing a part quite well.
“Diana and I reported what she said, with no assessment of her veracity.”
“Okay,” Jennifer said slowly. “If she knew it wasn’t true... misdirection?”
“Exactly. Thinking that talking about him possibly hitting his head makes us think she didn’t know anything about the three shots to the back of his head until overhearing a deputy.”
“Sounds like Brenda had a lot to say, lots of throwing in possibilities.” Mike looked at me as he added, “You’ve said guilty people do that to confuse matters.”
“True.”
Jennifer jumped in with, “You also say people will clam up and it sounds like Wendy did that — along with trying to keep Brenda from saying so much.”
“Also true.”
Diana proclaimed, “A draw.”
